Encinitas to settle lawsuit over library defects

ENCINITAS  Encinitas will attempt to settle a lawsuit filed against the developer of the Encinitas Library to recoup some of the $273,000 in repairs to the building the city has planned to pay for.

The City Council by unanimous consensus last week directed City Attorney Glenn Sabine to settle with contractor C.E. Wylie to get reimbursed.

The $13 million library, the county’s second-most popular out of 33 branches, sees an estimated 441,650 visitors per year. Since it opened in 2008, library staff members and patrons have complained of failures of the building’s air conditioning and heating system. Some parts of the building are tremendously cold, while others can be uncomfortably warm, city public works department officials have said.

The building’s automatic windows also did not work at times.

The City Council in April voted to spend $143,000 to fix leaking pipes and the library’s heating, cooling and ventilation system. The work, done for $130,000, has been completed, said Bill Wilson, a management analyst with the Public Works Department. The City Council allocated another $130,000 for future repairs of the air conditioning system’s controls, the power windows, and improving the building’s energy efficiency. That work has not started, Wilson said.

The energy improvements could save the city several thousand dollars per year.

At that same April meeting, the council directed staff members to seek legal recourse to recover the cost. C.E. Wylie had gone out of business after the library project was completed. The city sued the contractor May 27.